Refining, balancing and implementing new systems

I believe Space Engineers has a really good foundation for something amazing. But the current implementation of things leaves something to be desired.

I understand Keen doesn't want this game to be survival-exploration focus game therefore I am making these suggestions on those grounds. But let's be honest here. The game can't just focus on building things since the mechanics are too streamlined for a purely engineering game to hold our interest for long. But the mechanics are just perfect to focus this game on "base building survive against the enemies type of game". The mechanics are already robust enough for the most part, we need reasons to make elaborate designs.

We can forget the exploration part. If you can nail the survival - engineering balance it will work for a long time to come.

I am going to suggest some improvements to core game mechanics and a few new systems.

Improvements:

NPC Improvements

Replace the wolves with other ground forces
First of all, what we need in survival mode is some small attacks that threaten our base but are easy to deal with, these are used to deplete the turret ammunition, which then makes us go mining for ammunition production ores. Wolves are a joke, we need something on the ground that slowly destroy our base if left alone, if you're worried about pathfinding just have robots that can fly and have rifles to damage your base with.
The important thing is easy threats > uses ammunition.

NPC Attacks on unactive grids
How many times did you leave your mining base undefended, went away and nothing attacked it? Oh right, every time. We need a reason to have antennas, at the moment they only signal to enemies for them to attack you. If NPC's attacked your undefended base you might want to put an antenna there, and have it warn you if an enemy were to attack it. This ties to my next point.

Enemies broadcast Antenna name they are attacking
Have the antenna name be in the "Faction is moving to investigate a nearby antenna signal" or whatever it says. Then we can have a unique antenna name and know if they are attacking our base.

Block improvements

Small (Non-Rechargeable) Battery
We need something small and cheap if you just want to power a connector in your mining location, or a few lights.

System improvements

Airtightness scan
We need some kind of scanning ability to see where the air is leaking from when we try to pressurize and it doesn't work. At the moment having to use a mod called "buidinfo" to get around this.

Reason to pressurize
The new survival update helps by having a pressurized space be "safe" if you run out of power in your suit. But as somebody else already suggested in a different thread we need a better gameplay reason to pressurize. Have your tools work slower in unpressurized space. Like 50% lower welding speed in unpressurized spaces.

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That's it for the current game mechanic improvements. Now I'm suggesting some new mechanics and systems for the game.

New Systems

Heat (obviously)
Who would've thought a game about Space Engineering didn't have a heat mechanic at all? We want to build heat shields when entering earth and all that. I'm pretty sure Keen is working on this mechanic though as it is that obvious.

Fire and fire spread
Now we don't need wildfires in forests but station and ship fires could be interesting. The heat mechanic would of course first need to be introduced for this to work at all.

Different suits (probably controversial)
Think about it, a pilot suit that increases your turning rate like a gyro. But it's not airtight so if your engines get shot you can't get out to fix them. Pressurized suit that is slower to move in and a regular suit that increases your movement speed and tool speed. Another reason to pressurize your station.
I can just think about changing into the pressure suit when moving out of the station. Just some more immersion.
Better default NPC spawner
You can create quite a difficult game by using NPC mods and tweaking the Modular Encounters Spawner mod config parameters. But it's still just a random enemy spawner.

What I would hope for is for the developers to give the modders the tools for the default spawner to be able to do multiple things from the start like:
Change factions from neutral >hostile>peace when certain conditions are met
Announce some particular spawns in advance with a timer > you can easily create wave attack scenarios

With just these few simple changes you could create some life in your game. Especially spawn announcements like "1hour 35 minutes Space Pirate Capital Ship incoming to atmosphere" "Military Ship incoming to Earth Orbit in 30 minutes" "Military has declared war on Space Pirates"

You can create a lot of life to the game just with such simple tweaks. An announcement about a capital ship incoming is much more thrilling than just it randomly zapping in.

Random announcements about SOS calls and having a wreck at the coordinates could also be used.
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I'm curious, though. Do these things need to be part of the vanilla game, or is it ok if we could have everything by using mods?

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I would be fine if one could achieve these with mods. What I want the most is the NPC attacks on unactive grids. Mining bases are never in danger of enemy attacks which is so dull. I guess I could simulate it myself by always building an antenna there so sometimes the enemies might go investigate the beacon. But that's kind of shooting myself in the foot for no reason.

Second thing I really want is enemy spawn announcements. Just have something huge come close by (around 10km close) and let me know about it in advance. I think this might be achievable with the modular encounters spawner if someone really knew how to modify it. Easiest way would be probably to create a faction called "Carrier class" or something and just put huge ships on it. Then make those faction ships only spawn on the timed spawner. That I could see being feasible for someone having knowledge in SE modding being able to do.

Replacing wolves is probably the hardest one. I use the Terminator replacement mod, but they still only melee you which kinda breaks immersion. If it was possible to have them shoot that would be a good enough compromise. It would make you use use your turrets to target characters and waste bullets, which is what I'm looking for. A bullet sink > a reason to mine.

"This mod adds several new pirate drones to provide a more challenging Player vs Environment (PvE) experience. Many of the drones included make use of custom behaviors, making them a bit more unpredictable when compared to vanilla pirate drones."

Yeah I use all the enemy NPC mods. I've also tweaked the Modular Encounters Spawner scripts a bit to make it harder. But it's just a random spawner in the end. It's much better than not having enemies, but still I would like to add more "events" if you know what I mean. Just big ships spawning in with a timer and an annoucement would go a long way towards better immersion.

The fire or fire spread is an interesting idea, I have thought about how more interesting it would be if there were random equipment failures, but most games do not do a good job at that type of thing. They usually have it where it happens at a unrealistic rate. Kinda like most games do with hunger and thirst they make it more demanding than what it actually is in real life. So if a company could get them down to realistic feelings that would be epic! (Sorry ranting kinda, just wanted to share my little idea, then went on a small tangent.)

Replace the wolves with other ground forces
First of all, what we need in survival mode is some small attacks that threaten our base but are easy to deal with, these are used to deplete the turret ammunition, which then makes us go mining for ammunition production ores. Wolves are a joke, we need something on the ground that slowly destroy our base if left alone, if you're worried about pathfinding just have robots that can fly and have rifles to damage your base with.
The important thing is easy threats > uses ammunition.

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Like you, I play with many of the NPC mods; but the vanilla game does support NPC spawners as well, such as the probes and drop pods.
My idea is that they should enable enemy Engineer NPCs and some of the drop pod types need to be "Vessels" that land and spawn and endless supply of rival Engineers that spawn in waves until you defeat the source Vessel / Grid that spawned. Their jog towards your base would have no real path-finding issues any worse than the wolves, and simply being in packs and having ranged weapons would make them a far worse threat than Wolves or Spiders.
I think it would also be cool to have these Engineers target blocks with a grinder, and when they extract your material wealth (if nothing is around to fight them), they'd fill up inventory and then make return marches back to their landing craft. After unloading their inventory, the game does a check on how much material they've looted and then maybe the game would spawn drones on their behalf.

To be honest, the autominer script shows how you can make the game recognize pathing just enough to auto mine material under ground, much less just above ground nodes. While I would not ask Keen to develope full blown player AI, I do think very basic Automated NPCs where Engineers spawn, attack you and search nearby ores and mine them; then the game does a check to see how much they've mined and when they reach a thresh hold, the game begins spawning buildings, drones and vehicles to make it look like a rival colony is building up.

NPC Attacks on unactive grids
How many times did you leave your mining base undefended, went away and nothing attacked it? Oh right, every time. We need a reason to have antennas, at the moment they only signal to enemies for them to attack you. If NPC's attacked your undefended base you might want to put an antenna there, and have it warn you if an enemy were to attack it. This ties to my next point.

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I use Antennas all the time in my survival games because they're absolutely required to broadcast any meaningful information. For example, my survey vehicle having upgraded ore detectors on-board? If I get out on foot and scout, I need the antennas to broadcast the information to me.

Despite this, the enemy doesn't seem to be too interested in antennas. Not even the NPC mods. So, from the get go there doesn't seem to be much concern about placing an antenna. Now, Beacons on the other hand? Yeah those seem to serve only one purpose and that's a "Kick Me" sign for the Space Pirates... AND I cannot find a justifiable reason to actually use beacons. Since I'm in private games, I don't need to use Beacons to alert my brother to where I'm at. We tend to co-op anyway. GPS makes Beacons rather pointless to tracking home bases if you're on a long distance trip.

I think Beacons need to have an NPC purpose that benefits you.
I'd also support a rework of how the Antenna works to go with this.

The Antennas work fine minus that the only reason why I build them is for remote control or information broadcasting. IMO, Antennas on your suit are way too effective as you're allowed to see EVERYTHING even if it's 5km to 45km away. Antennas to me need to kinda' double as Radars. You should only be able to see other signals, even friendly ones (NPC wise) if you're antenna is within range. Because your suit antenna is rather short ranged, this means building antennas for vehicles and your base are now attractive to simply track where drop pod signals are falling nearby and where possible hostiles may have landed. You antenna name idea would couple well here.

This also opens the door to having random times where a Vessel of hostiles land in STEALTH MODE, (they're no broadcasting) just to up the ante when you get surprised later.

BEACONS and NPCs for hire!
Beacons I feel should be activated to help lure GOOD or FRIENDLY ITEMS / PROBES and NPCs. You want friendly pods to collect gear and get free loot? Turn on that Beacon and risk gettin' jumped. On the topic of FRIENDLY NPCs? I want to run an actual colony. IE, I'd love to have actual NPC engineers that I invite to my factions and work for me.

Friendly engineers can be rescued by yours truly. They'd come in on downs pods of crashed ships and simply wait in idle (in a chair or something) until you found them and interfaced with them.
My thoughts are that NPC Engineers for Player use should function as so:

A free programmable block - These guys can be told to sit at consoles (Flight seats or control stations) and when they do, the block turns into a Programmable Block in function only.

A free guard to protect the base - Arm them up and order them to stand in position to guard an area like a turret. A way point system using GPS coordinates could also allow for patrol routes.

A free labor force to mine - Give them a spare drill! Using something similar to the Auto Miner logic, the Engineer can be told to mine a particular area using legnth, wiidth and height functions and a GPS system to help them follow drop off and return routes.

A free mechanic - Give a spare welder and they'll automatically repair stuff or build stuff! Not only do you need to give them a welder though, but you'll have to personally load them with the materials you're about to use.

A free pilot - Since they can turn Control Seats and Flight Seats into programmable blocks; this means that they can be used as automated pilots.

Enemy NPCs would only have options to mine raw material and seek out your antenna / beacon signals and attack them (either via weapons and grinding down your material). So fundamentally, there's a difference in function between the Hostile and Friendly NPCs in order to limit issues. However, if the game ever plugged in true food mechanics, I'd love the option to use friendly NPCs for many functions if all I needed to do was to help keep them fed.

Airtightness scan
We need some kind of scanning ability to see where the air is leaking from when we try to pressurize and it doesn't work. At the moment having to use a mod called "buidinfo" to get around this.

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I agree. Would also be cool if there was a function where, when interfacing with your grid? You could click a block and there'd be a function called "highlight object". Then it would show that object glowing in the gold you usually see in the interactions. I've found that on large grids, even if you meticulously name every cargo container, console, button, WHATEVER, you still get lost on where "Cargo Number 7" is. And while I do use LCDs to help lable items, the lack of compound blocks means that often times, I simply do not have space in front of the said block to place the LCD sign. Rather annoying.

Reason to pressurize
The new survival update helps by having a pressurized space be "safe" if you run out of power in your suit. But as somebody else already suggested in a different thread we need a better gameplay reason to pressurize. Have your tools work slower in unpressurized space. Like 50% lower welding speed in unpressurized spaces.

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Welding should actually be MORE effective in space, or at least it's not different. This was tested as early as Soyuz 6 which tested EB, Electrode and Plasma Arc methods.

The problem Game Play wise is that our space suits are too damned good. They carry too much oxygen and we're totally immune to radiation within them. IRL, even the best future predictions for personal space suits won't be THAT good and it will still behoove one to stay mostly within the protection of a vehicle.
In SE, what can possibly be added is that unless you're near or on a planet's gravity well, you can only be in space so long before you start dying from radiation. Pressurization could be the "anti-radiation" zone - despite being unrealistic; this gives a good reason to pressurize work areas. Being near a gravity well would be the equivalent of being within the protective layer of a Magnetosphere.

If you included the use of friendly NPCs into the mix, pressurization just makes managing and keeping fellow friendlies alive as well. There's that to also consider.
KEEN, PLEASE ADD NPCS. PLEEEAAAASE.

Also food.

Food mechanics. I love them. Make the good production blocks REQUIRE an atmosphere and thus you HAVE TO HAVE Pressurization just to eat and stay alive.

Heat (obviously)
Who would've thought a game about Space Engineering didn't have a heat mechanic at all? We want to build heat shields when entering earth and all that. I'm pretty sure Keen is working on this mechanic though as it is that obvious.

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They are and I only saw it on the last test to limited affect. If you're talking about the friction heating like in the "deadly re-entry mod", I would love to see another type of armor other than light and heavy - thermal maybe? I dunno'.
If they're to add full on thermal mechanics to the game, then they need Radiators probably in two forms. A Radiator Block for heating a cold pressurized room, and Radiator Panels that sorta mimic the solar panels, for cooling DOWN pressurized areas.

On top of this, I'd love it if they'd allow G forces on your engineer, to the degree that too many Gs causes your screen to black out.

Fire and fire spread
Now we don't need wildfires in forests but station and ship fires could be interesting. The heat mechanic would of course first need to be introduced for this to work at all.

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This maybe a bit over the top as being an O2 pressurized environment could only mean bad things...

On that note however, I do use the one mod that causes catastrophic explosions when certain blocks are destroyed, like production blocks, engines and gas tanks. This alone provides some cool effects as well as a greater over all challenge in both designing and using those vehicles in survival mode. So that's my vote - just make certain blocks EXPLODE like a micro Warhead block when they're destroyed. To add to the flair, have those type of blocks when severely damaged, lose HP over time by "burning" out unless you repair them in time.

Different suits (probably controversial)
Think about it, a pilot suit that increases your turning rate like a gyro. But it's not airtight so if your engines get shot you can't get out to fix them. Pressurized suit that is slower to move in and a regular suit that increases your movement speed and tool speed. Another reason to pressurize your station.
I can just think about changing into the pressure suit when moving out of the station. Just some more immersion.

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I'm not sure how controversial this is. Many have talked about it before, including myself. I'm all for it. I mean we've got TONS of good examples on the workshop for custom suits. Suggestions could be for:

Combat Suit - More powerful jet pack that burns fuel a LOT faster. Use it in JUMPS, instead of how you currently use the jet pack. Also gives you more health for mimicking padding and combat armor as well as an increase in sprinting speed.

In general, I think Keen should take note of the current mod list and add their functionality to the game in some degree. Having options we can tick on and off on the advanced games settings would so awesome. Setting things like "waves", "wave delay", "time between waves" as an example. Setting "thickness" of traffic. Setting "random signal frequency" to adjust how FREQUENTLY we see NPCs, would all be awesome. Especially if they add TRUE NPCs to the game.

ON that note, I'd love to see some real end-game stuff here. While Keen may want to keep the game as a sand box puzzle builder game, one has to admit that it's better to create puzzles for us to solve, rather than have no puzzles at all. The Sand Box mantra only goes so far.
Thus I've always vetted the idea of discovering "quest lines" that allow some sort of forward progress, pretty similar to how Mine Craft's original campaign worked. The difference here is that I'd love to see the ability to discover multiple quest lines at the same time, each with their own goals and rewards. They'd purposely compete with each rival quest line so as to give the player a real sense of choice when they choose to follow one set of goals versus another. I've had the idea for 3 main quest lines for a while now - One is a military focused one, one is an exploration focused one and the last is a mining/industrial focused one. The idea is that completing quests for either of these lines would introduce thematic upgrades that tailors to the players choice and play style. For example, completing Military focused quests will start to reward you with better weapons and armor. Completing exploration based ones may unlock new power supplies and extreme sensors / antennas. Lastly, the industrial quest line my unless better production blocks and tools.

I think it'd be a great way to add in-game content to really flesh out the world while also allowing some level of single player scenario feel - having a true end-game feeling where your character in-game was once clinging on to dear life but slowly but surely, rises up to either become a great military commander, a great explorer or a great mogul. It's got a sort of "become a king by your own hand" vibe to it. It's a lot of work to be sure, but I know it can be done. If nothing else, I'd hope to see such end-game progression content in SE2 at the very least.

@Einharjar I think the beacons are just "left over and antiquated" from the initial release of SE. Back in the day that is the only way we had of finding our ships or bases when we left them. (Antennas did not broadcast back then.) I do like to use them for ambient light sources from time to time, but yeah there is no real purpose for them any longer. Maybe Keen will remove them if they do not find another way to make them useful.

@vadersson true, but once you build the beacon you can scrap it and then build an antenna straight away they both require the same components (large versions anyway) if I remember correctly. So beacons really are not a need other than to unlock antennas now.. which is pretty immediate no extra grind.

@Einharjar I think the beacons are just "left over and antiquated" from the initial release of SE. Back in the day that is the only way we had of finding our ships or bases when we left them. (Antennas did not broadcast back then.) I do like to use them for ambient light sources from time to time, but yeah there is no real purpose for them any longer. Maybe Keen will remove them if they do not find another way to make them useful.

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A beacon is either a navigation aid or a rescue signal. A lighthouse, for example, is a beacon. It tells ship pilots that "there is land here. Be careful." If the pilot has navigation charts they could find the beacon on the chart and figure out where they are and which way to go safely. Airports have beacons on or near their control towers. The flashing light patterns tell aviators that there is an airport here, and whether the airport is civil, military, or a hospital. The point of a beacon is that you don't need any special equipment to find them other than the naked eye.

Antennas are communications devices. They are not meant to be seen by the naked eye, and being able to see them is not the point. They are only one component of radio communications. You can connect an antenna to a transmitter to send messages, or you could connect it to a receiver to hear messages, or a transceiver to do both. You don't build any of that in SE. Apparently all you need is an antenna. I think it would have been more interesting if there were various levels of transmitters and/or you could beef up a transmitter by installing an amplifier. Bases/capital ships could have big, beefy transmitters requiring lots of power to send a signal to another planet.

You would use a beacon in friendly space to let other ships know where you are so that everyone could navigate accordingly. Obviously, you would not use your beacon in unfriendly territory. In friendly space, navigation may be controlled, and having your beacon on would be mandatory. If you are under attack, you might activate your beacon in hopes friendly vessels will investigate.

I think if someone actually sat down and researched how things are actually used, some of the devices we have available to us in SE might actually prove to be useful, and the experience would be closer to realistic.

In the currently deployed iteration of the game, beacons let me find my ship and identify my presence to other players for only 50 PCU, as opposed to 100 PCU for an antenna. Playing on a server with PCU limits, I find this of value.

EDIT: I read that the survival update includes some PCU rebalance. I don't know if the above has changed. Hope not.

I think if someone actually sat down and researched how things are actually used, some of the devices we have available to us in SE might actually prove to be useful, and the experience would be closer to realistic.

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I want to be clear about what I wrote there. Someone at KEEN should research how things are actually used, in order to make the things they put in the game more useful. They put beacons in the game without explaining their use, so they either get used for unclear reasons or not used at all, when in fact if people learned from the game what they are for, every ship would have one. If someone at Keen researched how radio is used, we would have different types of antennas, transmitters and receivers, and we would learn which is best for what.

I'm not saying no one at Keen knows this stuff. I'll bet someone there does. There has to be at least one person that has a boat or a pilot's license working there, or a friend that does.

In my opinion antennas should only be available on large grids and the beacons should have a really limited range. Like 50km or something. Then you would have to build antenna towers around planets to remote control from far away.

In my opinion antennas should only be available on large grids and the beacons should have a really limited range. Like 50km or something. Then you would have to build antenna towers around planets to remote control from far away.

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I disagree. Beacons should have much, much longer range, since as opposed to the antennae there's much less performance impact with them on range. This would distinguish the beacon from the antenna. It should also function as a jump drive target. In other words, they should actually be... beacons. Of course with that I would also like the ability to filter out beacons at my discretion...

I know it can't or wouldn't be done but I think beacons would serve better for emergency use. All power goes out Beacon comes on as it has a built in power source, you know kind of like a, well emergency beacon.

People who play in multiplayer shy away from beacons for obvious reasons..

The obvious part being that trolls really don't know how to read... They think it says bacon, and come running.

But honestly, let's consider for a second that the space engineers solar system is a pirate infested anarchy, derelict ships and automated drones throughout. Much like the English coast during the Viking times.. the lighthouses just get smashed.

But honestly, let's consider for a second that the space engineers solar system is a pirate infested anarchy, derelict ships and automated drones throughout. Much like the English coast during the Viking times.. the lighthouses just get smashed.

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Well, as I said, you turn your beacon off in unfriendly territory. If you are attacked you turn it on if friendly forces might see it and come running.

I does not appear to me that any particular SE session lasts long enough to reach a point where "friendly territory" gets established and "friends" outside the territory can count on help from within the territory. It's kinda funny because during Xoc's last "stress test" it's clear that having everyone in one spot hurts performance. However, since procedural planets will apparently NOT be a thing, there's not much incentive to move far beyond the origin.

When I play, the whole point is about territory. As a miner I prospect for ore. When I find it I stake a claim, thus marking the spot as mine. As a practical matter, when my flagship, Chilkoot Trail, moves beyond established territory, AM&M claims everything within 20,000 kilometers. The position and composition of all celestial bodies are noted, logged, and henceforth referred to as property. Chilkoot's beacon let's everyone know that they are in AM&M territory. Depending on who you are, that may or may not be good news. In her wake are asteroids with AM&M beacons. As a rule we don't actually claim planets. We mark their position and suitability for colonization, and provide safe passage for colonists that would eventually claim the planet.

I would be fine if one could achieve these with mods. What I want the most is the NPC attacks on unactive grids. Mining bases are never in danger of enemy attacks which is so dull. I guess I could simulate it myself by always building an antenna there so sometimes the enemies might go investigate the beacon. But that's kind of shooting myself in the foot for no reason.

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Park you mining base within 20 km of a Pirate Outpost or Raiding Station. Then you'll have friends.

I disagree. Beacons should have much, much longer range, since as opposed to the antennae there's much less performance impact with them on range. This would distinguish the beacon from the antenna. It should also function as a jump drive target. In other words, they should actually be... beacons. Of course with that I would also like the ability to filter out beacons at my discretion...

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But what practical function would they have? I'm assuming since you want them to be "just beacons" that would mean remote controlling a drone with only a beacon and not an antenna is also out of the question. So what is their actual gameplay purpose?
I know you said jump targets but shouldn't antennas work for that as well?

But what practical function would they have? I'm assuming since you want them to be "just beacons" that would mean remote controlling a drone with only a beacon and not an antenna is also out of the question. So what is their actual gameplay purpose?
I know you said jump targets but shouldn't antennas work for that as well?

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@Malware has a great idea honestly. The Beacons can act as Nav Buoys. When you jump, a list of jump points is included in the jump settings list. Selecting a Beacon as the target will jump you at the precise direction of that Beacon and deliver you 2km out. It'd be pretty awesome to have Nav Bouys.

I really feel that the Beacon should be the true NPC Interaction tool., EEM and other mods offer massively expanded NPC factions, many of which are friendly, not just hostile. Activating a Beacon and keeping it up basically should INCREASE Contact rates from NPC, allowing the Beacon to act as a Progression tool in terms of exploring new content or activating other methods of play.

If Space Engineers had installed a detailed end-game experience, Beacons could even have signal modes that favor luring certain friendly NPC types. Ex:, activating Requesting Aid could lure friendly NPCs that offer material assistance like cargo pods or the like, Distress Call could lure friendly military vessels to help clear the area, or a Trade Broadcast to lure merchant NPCs that allow you to exchange resources with them for what you need.All of this plus the increased chance of Pirates spawning and hunting your Beacon. (Risk vs Reward).

The trick is making the Beacon not just practical, but a mere option. To keep it a mere option, the Beacon needs to be balanced as obviously if you're playing the Pirate role yourself, setting up a trap gets pretty damned easy. So the Spawning itself needs to be balanced.

I'd also add that in my previous post, my co-op survival games require Beacons to be built and activated before you can hire NPC blocks like the Engineer Turret mod blocks or the NPC Android Blocks. Since I'm so in-love with the idea of having NPCs to mimic a thriving colony under my command, I'd love for this to happen in the vanilla game.

But what practical function would they have? I'm assuming since you want them to be "just beacons" that would mean remote controlling a drone with only a beacon and not an antenna is also out of the question. So what is their actual gameplay purpose?
I know you said jump targets but shouldn't antennas work for that as well?

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Wait... you can't remote control drones with beacons now can you? If so that's news to me. That's the purpose of the antenna and what gives it its performance impact (the need to keep track of other antennae). If the beacon got that feature there really would be no difference between them and there would be no point to having two different blocks.

What practical function they would have? What's the practical function of real beacons? To simplify... to transmit the location of things. And that's what I would like to have. A way for beacons to be locational signals for places I don't necessarily have control over, like if a player faction creates a trading - or recruitment station, they can build a beacon and anyone could jump to it without actually needing to be sent the GPS coordinates. They could also function as drop target for drop pods, maybe.

Yes, antenna could have that function, but that would require increasing the range of them, which would increase their performance impact. I'm thinking practically here. The larger range an antenna has, the more space it needs to search for other antennae - thus the more hits it gets, thus the more time it takes to make the scan. Since beacons have no routing function, no transmission function, it just needs to check for the players within its own range. Quick and easy. That is the difference that will even allow for a greater range.

Right now the beacons have no purpose to me. I never use them, because the antenna provides more function.

Didn't know about the performance impact, that's a good point. GPS makes beacons slightly redundant at the moment though. If you're only about broadcasting your location then GPS does that just as well, if not better since there is no risk of an attack.
Real world beacons don't really have much use in this game since there is so little population in the game. Especially in multiplayer pvp servers why broadcast using a beacon when you can covertly communicate to friendlies by sending GPS?

If the NPC content (traders etc.) could be signaled to with using the beacon, then yes. That would be awesome.

Making it a jump drive target would be very useful as then that means you can have a mobile jump drive target, as opposed to the GPS where you'd have to make a new set each time you find a new asteroid to sit around by. Extend thier range to be really huge and it'd suddenly be very useful indeed. Two people want to play together on a server? One turns on thier beacon and the other jumps to thier position.

I don't see any reason why limiting it by factions would be worth doing, especially as it could easily be bypassed by just pointing at the beacon and doing a blind jump towards it. Might make it even easier to get close to cargo ships or pirate bases but I don't see any reason why they should have beacons on them anyway.